“Actually, my first experience with vinyl was when I was a really little child, like 5 years old.”
“My piano teacher, each year in June, gave a little concert and all the pupils had to play something. One of the fathers there was working in the vinyl industry and he made a little vinyl record for each one of us. When I opened it, the plastic smell was so strong.
I was fascinated by the black color of the vinyl. It was like a black hole. All the light was attracted to it. Maybe I started to link stars and music at this moment. Vinyl records are flat black stars.
Then in the ’80s and ’90s I started to buy vinyl records to complete my collection. I was buying everything from my idols: Bowie, Eno, The Cure, Prince, Kraftwerk, Gainsbourg, then Beck, Bjork, Aphex Twin. I had a passion for Deutsche Grammophon, too.
Then when I was on tour abroad it became like a challenge and a ‘vinyl mania’ with the musicians on the tour. Like Jason Falkner for example, we would use our per diems to buy vinyl. In each city there were some incredible record stores and I bought a lot of them on tour. And now getting vinyl records is, for me, a way to pay attention to new productions.
I don’t buy so many vintage records anymore but new editions from electronic bands that I like, and I can enjoy the pleasure of music only by listening to vinyl records. I got some Oneohtrix Point Never, Alessandro Cortini, Arca, Django Django…
When I do a dinner for my birthday for example, some of my friends are buying vinyl for me as a gift, and they know really well what I would like. Recently, a friend of mine bought me a Midori Takada record that I really love.”
—JB Dunckel
H+, the new full length release from Air’s JB Dunckel arrives in stores on March 16, 2018 via Sony France.
